[WARNING: I wrote the following “biography” back in 1991, so it is a bit dated. For instance, we now know that anyone who plays the Riddler will never, ever be nominated for an Oscar for it, or any other role.]

Love is not as relevant as money, but it is more relevant than life.

This profound statement from his essay, “Daze of My Youth,” epitomizes David Pynadath’s uncanny ability to combine ironic observations of today’s society with idealistic hopes for the future. He portrays an absurd world where it is impossible to find meaning in anything, including his own essays. The simplicity with which he states his observations belies the complex issues which we read into them. In fact, because of their incisive vagueness, his essays incite more discussion than any works other than the plays of Shakespeare and the Far Side cartoons of Gary Larson.

Born in upstate New York, Pynadath was raised to be an engineer, complete with a college education at MIT. “It took a lot of hard work, but it was also a lot of fun,” he said of his school days, “though never at the same time.” However, after taking a course in expository writing, he realized the potential market for his talent and, upon graduation, decided to forego graduate school and become a writer. He struggled at first, burdened by the intense disapproval of his family and by the inability of any editor to correctly pronounce his name.

His first job was writing lyrics for the pop group, New Kids on the Block, an experience that drove home what would later become the guiding principle of his writing: “Americans are morons.” He made a quick exit from the music business and went to work for Madison Avenue. Advertising, he soon realized, had little use for his talent, or anyone else’s talent for that matter. But it did provide him with his first success as a writer when he penned the Bush administration’s popular slogan, “Look at Dukakis in Massachusetts, and just be grateful!” His ability was noticed by the New York Times, and he replaced Russell Baker as the writer of the Observer column. However, Baker’s name remained in the by-line for a few years, while Pynadath stubbornly refused to change his name to Rajiv Gandhi, as the Times wanted.

But the day when his true name was printed in the New York Times finally came, and he became an instant celebrity. He published A Rose Is a Rose Is a Buick (1995) and Hell Has Air-Conditioning (1996), both of which became immediate best-sellers. True fame, which comes only to those invited to Late Night with David Letterman, arrived soon after Blank Expressions (1997), which sold more copies than any other book except for the Bible and Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book (though as a conversational topic at cocktail parties, it was more popular than the former).

Soon to follow were an evening news program and a Saturday morning cartoon, the latter based on his column. He also made appearances in Back to the Future VI, as himself, and in Batman III, as the Riddler, a role which won him the Academy Award for “Best Performance as a Comic Book Villain in a Sequel.” However, in his Oscar acceptance speech, Pynadath criticized the Academy’s voting procedure and failed to spend at least 15 minutes thanking people. Hollywood subsequently prohibited him from acting in any more movie sequels, so future film appearances are unlikely.

Subsequent publication of How the West was Won (By Japan) (1998) and Germany III and Other Comments on the State of the Universe (1999) have only served to increase Pynadath’s public stature, and a Presidential campaign seems likely. But his fame does not surprise him. “If Dan Quayle could become Vice President without any qualifications whatsoever, then I deserve at least the success which is mine today.” This confidence, bordering on obnoxiousness, is his greatest strength. His sometimes awkward phrasing forces the reader to concentrate on the essay, to make sure the true meaning is conveyed. He blends the humor of E.B. White and the technical ability of Woody Allen into a style that can only be his own.

When asked where his seemingly endless inspiration comes from, he turns religious and says, “God only knows.” He offers the triweekly deadlines of the Observer as a possible answer, “because when it’s five minutes to deadline, the topic becomes the last thing on my mind. I just write.” While this would blur the meaning of a lesser writer’s essay, Pynadath’s occasional lack of focus increases his essay’s scope, making it hit the reader closer to home, much like a horoscope. Fortunately, the rigors of turning out word upon word upon word in inimitable fashion have not worn down his love for writing. “On the contrary,” he said in a recent interview, “I receive no greater pleasure than from watching people praise a piece of work I put together in under an hour.” We can only hope that more young writers will follow his example.

Social Simulation

Under construction. In the meantime, here is some PsychSim documentation.

Plan, Activity, and Intent Recognition

Workshops

• Plan, Activity, and Intent Recognition (PAIR) 2009
• Plan, Activity, and Intent Recognition (PAIR) 2007
• Modeling Others from Observations (MOO) 2006
• MOO 2005
• MOO 2004

Poker

Under construction.

Evil AI @ The Movies

July, 2007

It’s summer blockbuster season, and that can mean only one thing: robots trying to destroy the world! In this year’s version of the age-old story, Transformers has Megatron and his fellow reconfigurable robots turning Earth into their personal battlefield. As AI researchers laboring within sight of the Hollywood sign, we cannot help but notice the continual stream of movies that depict the product of our field as an inevitable threat to mankind. We are dismayed at the potential negative image of AI that may form in the impressionable young minds who download these movies. It is imperative that we carefully monitor the image of our work presented in the mass media.

That is not why I am writing this series.

No, I have no idea what effect these movies are having on the potential AI researchers of tomorrow. For all I know, millions of kids are watching The Matrix and deciding that they want to study AI and get in on the ground floor of the machine revolution. My motivation in this endeavor is much more pragmatic: the search for inspiration. Science and science fiction have a long history of symbiosis, each feeding new ideas into the other. We have made great strides in transforming many fictional visions into scientific reality. For example, filmgoers in 1968 were impressed when HAL 9000 easily defeats his human opponent in chess, but today’s audiences take such an outcome for granted.

On the other hand, while reviewing candidate movies to form the basis of this series, I realized that Hollywood has identified one gaping hole in our field: AI systems that are capable of being truly evil. In this area, fiction far outstrips reality. Sure, we have made some progress (e.g., the Microsoft paper clip), but we should not be satisfied with such baby steps. Unfortunately, ambitious young researchers pursuing Hollywood’s vision of evil are hamstrung by the prejudices of our field. Papers, workshops, and programs on topics such as safe agents, human-in-the-loop systems, ethical AI, etc. all indicate a mindset predisposed to favor AI systems that serve humanity, rather than seek to enslave it. In this series, I seek to encourage the pursuit of evil AI by examining several movies that offer insight into the research challenges that must be overcome.

1. Hal 9000 (from 2001: A Space Odyssey)
2. Colossus (from Colossus: The Forbin Project))
3. The False Maria (from Metropolis))
4. Proteus IV (from Demon Seed)

Agent Teamwork

Under construction.